Interesting non programming tasks for programmers

Why should these developers come into work to 'do their own stuff'? Let them stay at home and 'do their own stuff'! I hope i never work for someone like you!

EDIT: As a response to your edited question, i understand your point that our grandfathers may of worked 7 day weeks to build our countries but they were not software developers! Developers are a little different to labourers, etc. Developers need down-time for their brains. As someone else has already commented that work time can be, or is a constant. Just increasing hours does not make sure more work is done. There is only so much you will gain from working developers too hard, and you'll be quite possibly pushing them away to your competitors.

Have you heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? It says that people need to satisfy their more basic needs before satisfying higher levels of needs. I'm not going to argue against your culture of working of weekends (which we have the luxury of seeing as a bit harsh).

But I would say that having an appropriate time off from work each week is a more basic need that "doing fun stuff with my colleagues".

That might have been a nice thought if you did it on say a working friday occasionally but as it is you're most likely better of fulfilling the basic need of them have some time off from work.

I'd also remind you of Scott Adam's very true words that the amount of real work being done is constant, i.e if you force people to work late or weekends they'll just find some way to slack off during normal hours.

I'm surprised you even have any developers if you routinely ask them to work on Saturdays. I hope they're getting paid well.

But to answer your question, give them the extra days off. Work sponsored "play time" is lame and makes management look clueless.

Positively encourage them to improve communication, writing skills, write blogs, work on pet projects, learn better English, be a better parent, publishing a paper, speaking at a conference etc.

Perhaps make some small amount of resources, books, training, time, budget or whatever in support of these.

But let them choose when, how and if ... some might want the option of weekend, some might stay a little later in the week, and some will prefer to spend time with their family. That's ok! It is so much more likely to be considered a perk of an enlightened employer doing it like that ... and you'll get more out of them that way too.

Seems like you are trying to "googleize"(or googlify, whichever you prefer) your company. Probably your employees will end up using the non-production, working Saturdays to do TP(pass time, for those who dont understand Inglish). They will play games and tell you they are learning Game programming. Save yourself the headache of looking over their shoulders. Give them the day off.

Obviously your business is concerned with billable hours. I would suggest that maybe you have some developers that work Tues-Sat and some that work Mon-Fri. Let that be your indicator of what the developers prefer.

As a developer I wouldn't mind working an alternative schedule if it was offered. However, if your developers have families, then I would bet that most of them would rather have a Mon-Fri schedule.